This New York piano trio got its start in 2007, when drummer Qasim Naqvi, bassist Aakaash Israni, and pianist Amino Belyamani were students at CalArts, jamming in darkened spaces and developing a distinctive strain of group improvisation—limited in its use of melody, harmony, and structural motion but tightly coiled and constantly, incrementally developing. Last year, though, Dawn of Midi took a striking turn on the album Dysmonima (Thirsty Ear), meticulously charting out every note and rhythm. The group comes off as a piano trio tackling the catalog of minimal techno label Kompakt or covering classic Neu! tracks, except that every element of the players’ insinuating matrix of cycling patterns is changing all the time. Each musician creates a terse groove, and their complex intersections create additional layers of movement, like a wheel that under a certain kind of light seems to spin slowly backward as it speeds forward. Every phrase is clipped and jagged, and Belyamani often damps the strings of his piano with his hands, adding to the percussive feel. It’s especially fun to lock in on a single player and follow him—as you choose different players to use as a stable frame of reference, the total effect of the music is utterly transformed. It has no foreground, no narrative quality, but its momentum is relentless and its evolution essentially infinite. —Peter Margasak